Booze Nooze: Death of a Statesman

From the Bar None’s Juice-box, in tribute to Mr Shoichi Nakagawa:

Another Dead Soldier

If you want to see the YouTube video of the infamous Valentine’s Day massacre, click on the image.

i ran out of room in the above article, but i wanted to mention, in passing out, the following stats about Nakagawa.

• In 2000, after winning an election, Shoichi was famously unable to draw an eye on a daruma doll to signify a wish come true.
• In 2006, news footage showed him stumbling out of a government car, weaving into a building and tearing off his tie with his face a deep Johnny Walker red.
• In October 2008, he showed up fifteen minutes late to a morning news conference and was so vague about his plans to stabilize the economy that the stock market fell to its lowest point in nineteen years.
• After the February G7 binge, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told Japanese TV that he’d already had a heart to heart with his bro’ about the booze. “Since he really loves to drink, I advised him once to be careful about drinking.”

Sage advice indeed. Pro’lly loses something in the translation.

i’m speaking to you now as the FASe of the D-Generation.

This post is about shame.

We’ve all done something we’re ashamed of when we were drunk and if more of y’all commented here i’d share a story or two of my own past debaucheries. i’ll end up doing it anyway, sometime, but let’s just agree that we’re all in the same boat. We’ve all screwed the pooch at one time, some of you even literally.

Some news sources are claiming that an empty bottle of sleeping pills was found on the bed beside Shoichi. There was no note but no sign of foul play either. Signs seem to point to suicide over the loss of the recent election and the loss of face concerning the G7 fiasco. We all know how well the Japanese deal with all kinds of loss and Loss of Face especially.

My fellow alcoholics, patrons of the Bar None, members of D.R.I.N.K.E.R. and players in the D-Generation, we cannot let ourselves Turn Japanese in this respect. Life only goes one way, people, and we can’t go back. Even teetotalers make mistakes, for god’s sake. They have to live up to theirs just as we have to accept and get over ours.

We cannot choose our past, babes, but we can sure as shit choose our future.

Booze Revooze: A Drinker’s Skewed View of Mary And Max

[Click here for a guide to Booze Revooze and the rating system used]

Music from the film: Prokoviev’s “Dance of the Knights”, from Romeo and Juliet

Ramblings: Human Clay

Final Proof: 4 Shots

i didn’t take my movie revooze notebook to this because i thought it was gonna be this sweet little kid’s movie and not at all what we serve on tap at the Bar None.

i was wrong.

Mary and Max was beautifully tragic, tragically dark, darkly beautiful, beautifully sad, sadly gorgeous and gorgeously ugly.

The story was simple yet moving and i even guy cried a few tears at the end. The look of the movie was as somber as the story but there was so much humanity in everything that touches the tale that we the viewer cannot help but be touched as well.

From a technical point of view, the clay-mation approaches perfection. Not surprising when you learn the guy who made this, Adam Elliot, spent five years pulling it all together. Jesus, i’m not sure there’s anything in my life worth five years’ time, other than friendships and family and romance and that kind of crap. i just mean, i’m not sure i can imagine a project where, after five years, i could stand back and say, “Yeah, i’m glad i took all that freakin’  the time to do that.”

A special  mention before i move on, to Philip Seymour Hoffman who does Max’s voice. You won’t even recognize it’s him, swear to god. If there’s an award for animated voice stylings, he should win. If there isn’t such an award they should invent one just so PSH can win it for this M&M.

Oh, btw, this isn’t a movie i’d take my 12-year-old to. It’s just a little too dark.

Buzz Kills (Watch out for Spoilers)

Sex: 0 Shots

It’s clay-mation, people. The only sex scene in the history of 2D/3D animation that counts is the one in Team America: World Police (and if you haven’t seen that scene you need to go out and rent it tonight).

Wait, i know! Toni Collette was the voice of Mary in this. So here are some pictures of Toni:

Drinks: 4 shots

Yeah, i know, right?!

This came as a huge surprise to me too. i was all settled into my little seat thinking there was no chance of any drink references at all when, imagine my surprise, inside the first five minutes i get:

• A father who drinks Bailey’s and stuffs dead birds
• A mother who’s “wobbly” from constantly testing the cooking sherry, which she describes to her daughter as “tea for adults”.
• A little girl who believes babies come from the bottom of beer mugs.

After that, when the little girl grows up, she gets hooked on sherry as well. She buys it by the box and eventually stands on a coffee table, puts a noose around her neck, and swallows a handful of Valium.

Interestingly enough, the clay actors in this movie do a much better job of acting drunk than 99% of the ‘real’ actors out there.

Point being, alcohol and alcoholism were a very prevalent undercurrent in the movie.

Rock & Roll: 0 Shots

Y’all are kidding, right? Pink Martini and incidental music is all we get here. Look, here’s the link to the soundtrack. i bet you a beer you won’t find anything rock or roll anywhere even near this album.

Boring Technical Crap

Written & Directed by: Adam Elliot

Starring

Toni Collette – Mary Daisy Dinkle (voice)

Philip Seymour Hoffman – Max Jerry Horovitz (voice)

Bottom Line

See it.